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RESEARCHERS NAME BEHAVIORS NOT CULTS
The Word Cult Has A Dictionary Definition
No Agreed Academic Definition Exists
Researchers Describe Named Behaviors Instead Of Sorting Groups
Each Behavior Can Be Observed And Recorded On Its Own
Robert Jay Lifton Named Eight Of Them In 1961
James Richardson Argued In 1993 For Dropping The Term
Diagnostic Manuals Describe People Rather Than Groups
This Part Covers Why The Definition Never Settled
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OKAY BACK FROM THE ARCHIVE 📚
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THE WORD NOBODY CAN DEFINE 🧩
The Word Cult Began As A Technical Term In Sociology
Ernst Troeltsch Named The Original Sociological Categories
By The 1970s Popular Use Of The Word Was Negative
Lay Critics Used It To Disparage Groups They Opposed
Richardson Published A Paper On That Shift In 1993
It Appeared In The Journal Review Of Religious Research
His Conclusion Was That Scholars Should Avoid The Word
He Also Argued Against Its Use In Legal Proceedings
Sociologists Introduced A Replacement Label For The Same Groups
They Chose The Phrase New Religious Movement
Eileen Barker And Gordon Melton Both Adopted It
Barker Works At The London School Of Economics
She Wrote That Definitions Are Useful Rather Than True
Her Own Definition Uses Two Plain Tests
A Movement Is New If It Became Visible Since The Second World War
It Counts As Religious If It Answers Ultimate Questions
Even With Those Tests The Total Count Is Uncertain
A Charity Named INFORM Held Records On Over 2000 Groups
Barker Reported That Figure In A 1999 Book Chapter
Gordon Melton Used A Narrower Definition For America
He Could Supply Information On Nearly 1000 Groups There
Barker Estimated The Western Total At Two Thousand Or More
Worldwide She Suggested The Lower Tens Of Thousands
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EIGHT CRITERIA IN A 1961 BOOK 📖
Robert Jay Lifton Was An American Psychiatrist
His Interest Began With Korean War Prisoners In 1953
He Interviewed 25 Westerners Released From Chinese Prisons
15 Chinese Who Fled After University Indoctrination Also Spoke
Norton Published His Book In New York In 1961
Its Title Is Thought Reform And The Psychology Of Totalism
Ideological Totalism Is The Title Of Chapter 22
That Chapter Names Eight Psychological Themes
Lifton Offered Them As Tests For Any Environment
Milieu Control Is The First Theme On His List
It Covers Control Of Information And Communication
Mystical Manipulation And Demand For Purity Come Next
Confession Is The Fourth Of The Eight
Sacred Science Means The Doctrine Cannot Be Questioned
Loading The Language Names The Use Of Group Jargon
Lifton Called Those Phrases Thought Terminating Cliches
Doctrine Over Person Means Ideology Overrides Experience
Dispensing Of Existence Is The Eighth And Last
The Group Claims The Right To Decide Who May Exist
A Later Framework Grouped The Same Behaviors Into Four
Steven Hassan Named It The BITE Model In A 2000 Book
The Letters Stand For Behavior Information Thought And Emotion
Hassan Later Wrote A Dissertation On The Model
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NO DIAGNOSIS IN THE MANUAL 🚫
Fielding Graduate University Awarded Hassan A Doctorate In 2020
Its Field Was Organizational Development And Change
The Dissertation Offered BITE As A Tool For Expert Witnesses
No Diagnostic Manual Lists The Model
Psychiatric Diagnoses In The United States Come From The DSM
The American Psychiatric Association Publishes It
No Edition Has Named A Diagnosis For Cult Membership
One Related Entry Appears In The Dissociative Disorders
The Fifth Edition Arrived In 2013
It Lists Other Specified Dissociative Disorder
That Category Includes Four Examples
The Second Example Concerns Prolonged And Intense Coercive Persuasion
That Entry Names Brainwashing And Thought Reform
It Also Names Torture And Long Term Political Imprisonment
Recruitment By Sects Or Cults Appears In The Same List
The Entry Describes Prolonged Changes In A Person's Identity
Conscious Questions About Identity Count Under It Too
The Fourth Edition Had A Similar Example Earlier
It Appeared Under Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
Nothing In Either Entry Classifies The Group Itself
The Diagnosis Describes What Happened To One Person
Sociologists And Psychiatrists Both Describe Conduct Instead
Only Popular Usage Still Sorts Groups That Way
